Bariatric Surgery

Obesity is a chronic and progressive disease that can effect multiple organs in the body. People with morbid obesity are at great medical risk of disability or premature death. At the top of the list of obesity related problems are type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. High blood pressure caused by morbid obesity can also lead to cardiovascular disease and stroke. Other health problems include sleep apnoea, low back pain, urinary stress incontinence and acid reflux. Significant weight loss can often ease these conditions or completely reverse them in some cases

Obesity is very difficult to treat and many patients try a multitude of diets and exercise regimes that achieve results that do not often last very long. Surgery to promote weight loss by restricting the amount of food that you can eat is now fast becoming an option for morbidly obese patients that have tried other weight loss treatments

To be eligible for weight loss surgery, patients generally have a body mass index or BMI of 40 or more. This translates to about 45kg over the ideal body weight for a male or 36kg over for a female. To calculate your BMI, please click here to use our calculator

Weight loss surgery may also be an option for people with a BMI of 35 or more, who suffer from progressive life threatening obesity health problems such as diabetes, obesity related heart disease or severe sleep apnoea, however, as is true for other treatments for obesity, successful results depend significantly on knowledge, personal motivation and behaviour.

"Ormiston Hospital has a number of highly experienced and skilled specialists available"

Ormiston Hospital has a number of highly experienced and skilled specialists available to advise and treat patients requiring bariatric surgery. All four of our surgeons perform the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy procedure, despite there being a number of other alternative options.

The laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is performed on the stomach alone, not involving any surgery on the intestine. Other names for this type of procedure have been partial gastrectomy, tube gastrectomy or vertical sleeve gastrectomy. What the procedure basically involves is making the stomach into a long tube as opposed to it being a normal pouch shape. The sleeve gastrectomy removes two-thirds of the stomach, which means the patient has a decreased appetite and feels ‘fuller’ quicker.

Sleeve gastrectomy is successfully used as a single stage procedure and there is no anastomosis or new connections made between the stomach and small intestine. The sleeve gastrectomy is believed to have an advantage over the adjustable gastric band, due to removal of the part of the stomach that produces the hormone that controls the desire to eat.

The potential complications of the operation on average are typically less than 0.5% compared to 2%-3% in a combined procedure

Why choose the sleeve gastrectomy?

The sleeve gastrectomy has the following advantages:
• It does not require the implantation of a foreign body such as a silastic ring used in gastric banding
• The procedure mechanically decreases the size of the stomach and decreases the secretion of the hormone that is responsible for the feeling of fullness
• The procedure offers the benefit of initially decreasing the body weight in the severely obese patient to prepare this patient for a staged procedure or other surgery at a later time if necessary

For more information about this procedure, please contact Ormiston via our online enquiry form